Thursday, September 14, 2017

Blog Kiosk: 9/14/2017 - Dodgers Links - Some Odds and Ends

Last Nights win puts the Dodgers magic number at seven. Yu Darvish was fantastic on the mound as he recorded seven shutout innings to lead the team. Just in time, eh? Darvish was not looking like the pitcher we thought we got. Per Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:

"It's more like if I keep pitching like that with that kind of results, I'm not going to be able to pitch in the playoffs," Darvish said. "The Dodgers got me for that situation, the playoffs. That was my concern."

Overall, Dodger pitchers struck out seven Giants and their offense recorded seven hits. Best yet, Cody Belling hit his first homer into McCovey Cove. Per Rowan Kavner at Dodger Insider:

“You always see it when you’re growing up watching Barry Bonds do it,” Bellinger said of the splash homer. “To actually do it, it’s pretty cool.”

The home run was Belli's 37th of the year -- just one shy of the National League record for a rookie. He also had seven total bases. Pic above via SportsNet LA on twitter. Below are more links to check out:

This Day in Dodgers History: In 1945, during an overnight trip between St. Louis and Chicago, the Brooklyn Dodgers train rammed into an gasoline truck, sending flames everywhere. The train engineer and a firefighter were killed. The Dodgers survived without serious injury because the momentum of their section carried it through the burning remains. I had previously written about this incident here. In 1993Mike Piazza hit home runs no. 29 and 30 to break the Major League record for homers by a rookie catcher. In 2002 Dodger infielder Chin-Feng Chen becomes the first Taiwan-born player to appear in the major leagues. He would get a pinch-hit walk and score on a double by Mike Kinkade.

“Nobody can put into words what momentum is and how it can change in the middle of a streak,” he said. “During that stretch in 1951, we lost games in the craziest, most unbelievable ways. How do you shake that? Sometimes, it’s a key hit or a defensive play. It can’t all be psychological. It happens in life, too. There are days when everything falls into place for you and other days when everything seems to happen to you. The ‘pep talk’ is another mystery in sports. You can watch a football team play lights out in the first half and in the third quarter they look like they forgot how to play the game.”

Apparently, JoBu made an appearance last night. Via the good eye of Redditor u/Heartless_16, we find photographic evidence of the "Major League" figurine was hiding in the Dodgers dugout. Maybe he woke their bats up.

Expect him (Donald Trump) to unveil a new executive order: The U.S. will no longer participate in the World Baseball Classic, a globalist conspiracy to undermine America’s ball-playing supremacy if there ever was one. And if an umpire ejects a pitcher for aiming a fastball at the head of a batter, expect Trump to disagree because “both sides are to blame.”

To lure fans to the game, the Dodgers will give away bare-chested Vladimir Putin bobble heads. Don’t be surprised to see Trump’s former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon roaming the stadium giving away specially printed copies of Breitbart News, with a scorecard insert. Anyone who doesn’t take one is a “fake fan.”

I just saw this post by Sports Card Info, and I am smitten. He writes about a little known product (at least to me) from Academic that features erasers fashioned to look like ballplayer figurines. There is a small checklist, and Mike Piazza is a part of it. Anybody know if he is shown as a Dodger?

With the Dodgers clinching of a playoff spot Topps has issued a 2017 Topps Now Postseason Team Set that includes 15-cards and the possibility of an extra card added for every series they win towards a championship. So, there is a chance for three more cards to be added to this set. A preliminary checklist includes Bellinger, Wood, Kershaw, Seager, Turner, Puig, Darvish, Granderson, Buehler and Verdugo. Go here to check out and order this set. There is also an autograph edition available that includes one surprise autographed card added on to the 15-card team set. The possible autograph includes Kershaw, Bellinger and Wood. Go here to check that out.

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“There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey. There’s nothing like it in sports. I don’t care that I’ve never been anywhere else. I don’t care. There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey.” -- A.J. Ellis